Australia: Great Ocean Road and Melbourne

Can’t believe I’m going to spend time with my dear friend from Brazil that I hadn’t seen for 2 years!

I’ve heard so much about Australia and met so many aussies during this trip that I almost felt like I’ve already been there. And the first familiar thing I noticed was a few guys walking barefoot in the airport. I never understood this about Aussie people, they walk with no shoes all the time, it doesn’t matter where they’re going… supermarket, downtown, etc.

My flight landed in Melbourne and I took a shuttle bus to the city to my friend’s brother! He was the one that saw me getting my first FINE in this trip. Well… let me explain, he had to do something downtown and left me in charge of changing the parking ticket after half an hour. When it was time, I was by the parking machine and realized I didn’t have enough change, so I ran into the first Seven Eleven I saw and got some coins. By the time I was back, there was a stupid fine ticket on the car, already!?! Shit!! I checked the time and I was exactly 2 minutes late! How can they be so efficient? Damn it! End of the story, my first money spent in Australia was $70 dollars with that. How stupid! Well, better days were about to come! And I was so happy to see my friend again that I forgot that very quickly.

Melbourne is a diverse and multicultural city, known as the “hipster‘s paradise” and an important financial center in the country. Many places around the town reminded me so much of some places in Europe and it felt so nice being in a developed country again, but along with that the high prices of everything hit me hard. How would I be able to keep my budget during this month? I guess fast food will be the best option in this case… Macca’s it is!

One of the highlight of my stay in Melbourne was the Australia Open Tennis! Exactly, and we did see Federer and Tomek playing, don’t want to make anyone jealous, but I have to say it was an splendid match!

Go Federer!!

We spent a day driving along the Great Ocean Road and for the first time, I experienced the natural beauty of Australia… together with the absurd climate change in the area. It’s impressive how the temperature drops down so quickly! Lesson learned: always take a jacket with you!